


my heart on a trigger

by soldierly



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-03
Updated: 2011-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierly/pseuds/soldierly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during CA:TFA. Bucky is afraid of heights, and whiskey is the best medicine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart on a trigger

"We can intercept the train here," Steve says, pointing at the mountain pass, and everyone stands up strong and tall and salutes, but Steve can see the shying in Bucky's eyes.

:::

It's not that Bucky's weak. He's never been weak – not when they were kids, not when Steve was a teenager and taking shit in the back of every alley in Brooklyn, when Bucky had to step in or watch Steve's blood smeared across the pavement, over and over. Not even when his parents died, or when Steve's did. Not when Steve kissed him, after a movie, in the dark during the credits like he'd seen boyfriends do with girlfriends, and they were both fifteen and it tasted like the chocolate they'd shared.

He comes to Steve's quarters that night with a bottle of good, strong cherry whiskey, and he pours them both shots, and Steve says, "I don't think I can get drunk anymore," and Bucky looks at him, rolls his eyes and says, "Pal, getting drunk ain't the only point of drinkin'."

:::

Bucky does get drunk, though, and by the time they've finished most of the bottle, he's lying sprawled between Steve's open, bent legs, back to Steve, head resting on his shoulder. Their shot glasses are long abandoned and the door is locked, because this isn't Brooklyn, and they don't have quiet apartments to themselves, and there are things even army men aren't supposed to do. Steve's got an arm over Bucky's chest, and Bucky's muttering about how Steve's broad now, _too_ broad, it ain't _natural_ —

"Of course it's not. I'm a – well, the serum," Steve laughs. The term _supersoldier_ still weirds him out a little; there's some part of him that can't stop thinking he'll look in the mirror and see him circa two months ago, skinny and asthmatic and soft-skinned. He tugs the whiskey from Bucky's hand, takes a long swig, and says as delicately as he can, "So what's wrong?"

"Nothin's wrong."

"Bucky," Steve says. Bucky twists around a little to eye him, disgruntled, and Steve really can't take him seriously, not with his booze-slick lips and his five o'clock shadow and his hair sticking up at odd angles. "Seriously."

Bucky turns, flops back down hard against Steve's chest. Back in the old days, it probably would've killed Steve, but now he doesn't even flinch, and Bucky only grunts and mutters, "Jesus H. Christ, are you made of _steel_?"

"That's Superman."

"Hey, shut up. I know that." Bucky thumps him on the thigh. He's quiet until Steve nudges him in the side. " _Hey_ , what?"

Steve just sighs at him, in his disappointed way, until Bucky mutters, " _Fine_ , can't do a damn thing with you mopin' and shit."

"I'm not moping!"

"You're been bein' _disappointed_ , weren't you?"

Steve squints into the dark of his room. "That wasn't proper English," he says, fondly. Bucky thumps him again. Steve says, "Is it about tomorrow?"

"Look, it ain't your problem – "

"Of course it is." Steve takes Bucky's shoulders in his hands, pushes him until Steve's sitting cross-legged and Bucky is stubbornly avoiding his gaze, swaying a little with the hit of the whiskey. "C'mon, Buck."

"It's the – " Bucky waves his hand. "The pass."

"The train?"

"The _tracks_ are – the whole _side of a mountain_ thing," Bucky mutters. "There, happy?"

"Oh," Steve says, and then, when he gets it, " _oh_. Heights." He should have remembered, because way back when, they'd climbed up on the roof of the bakery across from Steve's parents' apartment, just for kicks, and Bucky had gotten so sick Steve had had to get his father to come get him down.

Now, Steve thinks, he could carry Bucky down himself.

Bucky shrugs. "Ain't so much the heights. It's the falling."

Steve's mouth slides up at the corner. "Makes sense." He reaches over, tugs at the collar of Bucky's shirt. "Hey, come on. You know I won't let you fall."

"Heh, yeah." Bucky leans into his hand, then away to set the bottle down by the side of Steve's bed. After, he sidles unsteadily closer to settle over Steve's lap, close and warm with the dozy, familiar smell of alcohol on his breath. "I know you won't."

:::

And then he does.


End file.
